(January 2, 2014 at 5:41 pm)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote:(January 2, 2014 at 5:32 pm)BrokenQuill92 Wrote: My friend Jessica has a great dog and usually I don't pat Pippin unless his harness is off, or we're just sitting in the car or something like that. It's usually not a good thing for strangers to touch the dog but usually if you're a close personal friend the person won't mind too much.
My mobility unfortunately is not good enough for me to have a dog. Guide dogs are for people who've progressed past the use of a cane. I will probably never reach that point. Not to mention it's expensive and time-consuming to do the training since you have to start from puppyhood. I'm already taking off school to learn braille I don't want to have to also take off school to train a dog.
Pippin. Ha, nice name.
So I'm guessing you're from the US? Do you have to train your own guide dogs? I didn't realise. In the UK (where I'm from) as far as I'm aware charities train them and then give them to people who need them (or are deemed to need them).
But I don't know much about it beyond what I've seen in documentaries unfortunately.
Yes and no, you go to a dog training school. The dogs breed and temperament is paired with a person's personality and height. From what I understand from Jessica the training takes about a year and a half.
